Chapter 82

The night sucked. Cold sheets. No sleep. Just me and my traitor brain spinning in circles. In the morning, I saw his shoes by the door. That meant he'd come back sometime in the dead of night but was now gone again. I couldn't pretend I wasn't disappointed. But work slammed into me, and I buried myself in it. I spent the next few days camped out at Moss & Flame, working ten-hour shifts, hunched over gem settings and wax casts. I came home too wrecked to care about anything, let alone our 'rehearsal.' Ashton was apparently busy too. No sign of him for days. Not even a shadow in the hallway. Our whole flirt-to-convince-the-family thing? Dead in the water. Which—fine by me. Sort of. Ashton was hot, yeah, but cuddling with someone that good-looking without actual benefits was borderline torture. Then, finally, something worth celebrating: I wrapped up the custom set for Octavia Grey. Handmade, hand-set, one of a kind, absolute knockout. And too precious to be entrusted to couriers. I took